The silence held, dense and unmoving, and Sunny exhaled slowly through his nose before turning his attention inward. The lattice of runes unfolded at once, precise and indifferent, aligning themselves before his perception as his focus settled on the unfamiliar addition.
Attribute: [Deviant].
Attribute Description: [The Flame of Desire is conflicting with the Aeonic Paths.]
Sunny blinked, the reaction small but genuine, as his thoughts stalled for a fraction longer than usual. The phrasing was vague in a way that felt deliberate, which was never a good sign when it came to the Nightmare Spell. It did not simply lack clarity; it withheld it, presenting fragments that implied understanding without granting it outright.
"The Flame of Desire…"
He did not know what that Flame was, not explicitly, but the wording itself suggested something internal rather than external. And, although he didn't know what the Flame of Desire was, he recalled reading it once before...
AR-26710's Ascended Ability.
Aspect Ability: [Extinguished Soul].
Aspect Description: [When the flame of desire is extinguished, your flame burns brighter.]
...Unfortunately, this Ability did not explain what the Flame of Desire was meant to be, nor how to extinguish it. All he knew was that the result provided a boost to their flames. Though, Sunny held the suspicion that it involved killing others.
In that case, was the Flame of Desire something shared between all life? There was simply no way to know at this point in time.
His gaze shifted slightly as additional information unfolded, subtle threads of meaning weaving themselves into something more coherent. The Attribute still bore the structure of [Pathstrider], but where the previous designation had implied alignment, progression, and adherence, this one suggested deviation, contradiction, and resistance.
He traced the Paths listed within its influence, his gaze brushing against familiar concepts. Trailblaze, Destruction, and Preservation.
For a moment, there had been something else, something at the edge of perception that refused to fully resolve. His thoughts snagged against it, catching on a fragment that felt incomplete.
Fin—
The word fractured before it could finish forming, slipping from his grasp as though it had never been there to begin with. Sunny's expression sharpened faintly, a subtle tension threading through his gaze, but when he looked again, there were only three Paths present, standing in quiet opposition to whatever this Flame represented.
He exhaled slowly, dismissing the anomaly for the time being. The Nightmare Spell was not known for providing clean answers, and chasing something that refused to exist would only waste time.
'So, this is an upgrade. Or at least… a divergence.'
The memory of his battle against Phantylia surfaced unbidden, not as a clear sequence of events, but as impressions layered with intensity. Power that had not entirely been his own. A state that had blurred the boundaries between intention and instinct.
If this Attribute was connected to that, then it was not something he could afford to misunderstand. It was useful, after all.
Still, there was nothing more to glean from the description alone. The Flame of Desire remained undefined, and the nature of its conflict with the Paths was left frustratingly open-ended.
Sunny closed the runes with a quiet mental motion, allowing the lattice to dissolve back into the background of his awareness. The silence of the abandoned building pressed in once more, but it no longer held his attention.
He had lingered long enough.
'Guess I've got to see Seele, now.'
The decision came easily, though it carried layers he did not bother to unpack. Where Seele went, Veliona inevitably followed, whether invited or not. The thought did not bother him as much as it probably should have.
Then, as an afterthought, another name surfaced.
Bronya.
Sunny paused for a brief moment, considering it. The situation on Jarilo-VI was unstable in ways that extended far beyond the immediate threats they had encountered. The IPC's involvement alone was enough to warrant concern, and as the Supreme Guardian, Bronya would be at the center of it whether she liked it or not.
It had also been over half a year since he had last seen her.
A faint smirk tugged at his lips, unbidden and entirely self-satisfied.
'If she's anything like Seele, she probably missed me at least a little. And who wouldn't miss a powerful, successful, and objectively beautiful man such as myself?'
From the depths of his Soul Sea, Tingyun's voice drifted upward, laced with a familiar blend of amusement and exasperation.
[Confidence is one thing, Benefactor. Arrogance is another.]
Sunny ignored her completely, as he often did when her commentary became inconvenient. Instead, he stepped into the shadows, allowing them to swallow him whole without resistance.
The transition was instantaneous.
One moment, he stood within the decaying skeleton of an abandoned building. The next, he emerged from the shadow of a distant rooftop, the Underworld stretching out beneath him in a muted expanse of dim lights and lingering gloom.
Seele was already there.
She sat near the edge of the structure, one leg bent while the other hung loosely over the side, her posture relaxed in a way that suggested familiarity rather than carelessness. When he appeared, she turned her head toward him with an expression that held no surprise whatsoever.
She had known him long enough to expect this.
Sunny stepped forward and lowered himself beside her without a word, their shoulders nearly touching as he settled into place. For a while, neither of them spoke, the silence between them not uncomfortable but rather… unstructured, lacking the need to be filled.
Through the eyes of his shadow, he allowed himself a moment to observe her.
Seele had always been… cute, in a rough-edged, defiant sort of way, her tomboyish demeanor masking something softer beneath. That had been before the Second Nightmare, before the changes that came with Ascension had fully settled into her.
Now, the difference was unmistakable.
The traces of malnourishment that had once dulled her features were gone, replaced by a sharper, more refined beauty that carried both strength and grace in equal measure. Her face had lost the remnants of childhood, reshaped into something more defined, more… deliberate.
Sunny noted all of this with clinical precision, his thoughts detached in a way that almost bordered on objective analysis.
Then he frowned slightly.
He had seen Saints before. Objectively speaking, many of them surpassed Seele in conventional measures of attractiveness. Their features were often more symmetrical, their presence more refined, their very existence shaped by forces that elevated them beyond ordinary standards.
And yet…
His gaze lingered on Seele, a faint crease forming between his brows.
'Why…?'
The question did not fully form, but the answer hovered somewhere just out of reach. It was not about perfection. It was not about comparison.
It was something else.
Perhaps familiarity. Perhaps the simple fact that he knew her, that she was not an abstract ideal but a person shaped by experiences he had witnessed firsthand.
Or perhaps it was something more inconvenient than that.
Sunny did not pursue the thought further.
Instead, he turned his head slightly, intending to look at her directly, only to find that she was already staring at him, one brow raised in mild suspicion.
Heat rushed to his face before he could stop it.
He looked away immediately, his composure fracturing for a brief, embarrassing moment. Somewhere within his Soul Sea, he could have sworn he heard Tingyun groan, the sound carrying an almost tragic sense of disappointment.
For a fleeting instant, a thought crossed his mind.
He could kill her.
The idea surfaced with unsettling ease, as natural as breathing, its implications unfolding without resistance. If he did, he could claim her shadow, bind her existence to his own in a way that ensured permanence.
They would never be apart.
Sunny blinked, the thought collapsing in on itself as quickly as it had appeared.
'What…?'
He dismissed it immediately, refusing to examine it too closely. There were explanations for such impulses, rational ones, but acknowledging them would require confronting something he had no intention of facing.
Before he could recover fully, Seele leaned closer, invading his personal space with a sharp, knowing grin.
"What? Something wrong?"
Sunny blinked at her, momentarily thrown off by the shift in her behavior. The last time he had seen her, she had been far more reserved, her usual tsundere tendencies keeping her guarded and reactive.
Now, she seemed… comfortable. Or perhaps aggressive was the word for it?
That, more than anything else, unsettled him.
His Flaw answered before he could filter the response.
"I was considering killing you. Have I told you that you have a very nice shadow?"
Seele recoiled slightly, her expression shifting into one of visible discomfort, though she did not retreat as much as one might expect. Instead, she leaned back just enough to create space, her eyes narrowing.
"If you ever get arrested, I'm not bailing you out."
Sunny scoffed, the sound laced with immediate offense.
"That's because you're broke. You should try being more like me. Successful. Entrepreneurial. Financially responsible."
A vein twitched at her temple.
The punch came fast.
Her fist connected with his torso, only for her expression to twist into surprise as pain shot through her knuckles instead of his body. She pulled her hand back with a small hiss, staring down at it in disbelief before looking back at him.
Then, without warning, she grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it.
Sunny let out an undignified sound of protest, his composure shattering entirely as he tried and failed to stop her.
Seele stared.
Her gaze lingered on his abdomen, where defined muscle met the faint, coiling patterns of Serpent beneath unnaturally smooth, gray-toned skin. A faint blush crept onto her face, though whether it was from embarrassment or something else was unclear.
"…Do you have abs of literal steel?"
She reached out, poking his skin experimentally, her brow furrowing as it yielded under her touch despite the earlier impact.
"And what the hell happened to your skin? I saw you less than an hour ago."
Sunny felt heat surge through him again, sharper this time, his thoughts momentarily scattering in a way he did not appreciate.
He pushed her away, tugging his shirt back down with hurried efficiency, instinctively twisting his Flaw into something absurd.
"Not steel. Stone. My abs are rock solid. Get it? No? Tragic."
He gestured vaguely, as though that explained everything.
"As for your second question, I deceived an arrogant prince from the distant past into giving me flawless skin. You should consider it. Might improve your chances."
Seele glanced at him, unimpressed.
"And look like a corpse? No thanks."
She paused, her gaze drifting over him again, slower this time, more deliberate.
"It suits you, though. Like a pretty doll."
Sunny froze.
The words landed differently than expected, settling somewhere awkward and undefined. He stared at her for a moment, something unfamiliar stirring beneath the surface of his usual composure.
'Is she… flirting?'
The realization was not comforting.
Seele had always been easy to deal with when she was defensive, when her embarrassment masked itself behind irritation and sharp remarks. That version of her was predictable.
This one was not.
Sunny found himself hesitating in a way that felt deeply unfamiliar, his thoughts circling a question he did not want to fully articulate. The shift in Seele's behavior was too distinct to ignore, too deliberate to dismiss as coincidence. It was not that she had become a different person, but rather that something within her had been stripped away or perhaps reinforced in a way that altered how she chose to present herself. The avoidance was still there in fragments, as evidenced by her earlier reaction to Clara's teasing, but it no longer dictated her actions. Instead, she seemed… unguarded, or perhaps selectively guarded, and that distinction unsettled him more than outright hostility ever could.
He understood distance. He understood walls, hesitation, deflection, and the careful dance of never letting anyone step too close. Those were rules he had lived by, rules that had kept him intact in a world that demanded pieces of him at every turn. What he did not understand was this — this quiet confidence, this willingness to close the gap without flinching, without retreating at the last moment. It felt like an invitation, or worse, an assumption that he would not reject it.
That was dangerous.
Sunny's gaze shifted away from her, not out of embarrassment this time, but calculation. He knew himself well enough to recognize the early signs of something he had no intention of indulging. Attachment, once it took root, did not remain contained. It grew, twisted, demanded, until it became something that could not be reciprocated in equal measure. He had learned that lesson before, and he had no desire to repeat it.
So he did what he always did when faced with something he could not control.
He redirected.
"So, what happened in the Nightmare?"